Bonnie Bennett Pov

*Three Hours Later*

*Dream*

"I think I'm finally figuring this hunting thing out." Jeremy says, coming from behind a huge apple tree with a hunting bow and arrow.

"Well, you should.. It has only taken you a few years and a heart-stop to bring you back. You can thank my mother and our ancestors for that, by the way." Grams says to Jeremy.

"Yeah, I remember and if I get the chance to thank them myself …I will." Jeremy responded.

"I think we should head back inside. The storm is coming soon." Abby calls from the front porch.

We stood not so far in front of my small wooden home, beside me Jeremy came.

With his shoulder length brown hair and tattoos all over his neck, I wondered how he found me.

Before he moved ahead, he paused looking behind us.

I slowly turned, to follow his stare.

There, not so far from us.. Stood a figure leaning against the apple tree.

Surprised, he gave me a grin folding his arms over his chest.

Enzo.

He was still as handsome as ever.

I smiled at my thoughts.

"What's he doing here?" Grams asked, and I looked at Jeremy who was no longer there.

Glancing around the woods, I was completely unsure where he had gone.

Looking back to the apple tree, my love from so long ago continued to look.

His tall frame and tan skin reminded me of another.

I picture him wearing glasses and dressed in a suit.

My new friend had searched for me, I now wondered about him.

Angelo.

I turned to Grams. "Where is he? He's been looking for answers. They can be answered now."

Angelo is looking for his family.

"Who are you speaking of, baby? What made you so frantic and worried? It's it him?" Grams asked, motioning towards Enzo.

No. I answered in thought.

"Angelo." I mouthed.

"You've become so strong, baby. Promise me you'll always try to rest with no worries." She wrapped her arms around me tightly.

"I promise." I hugged her back. "Don't leave me. I miss you." I spoke to her.

"Bonnie…"

*End Of Dream*

…..

"Bonnie?" A soft now familiar voice whispered, caressing my hair and back.

His arms locked around my body so tightly, it was as if we were one.

The pounding of his heartbeat was certainly new, and before opening my eyes I inhaled his ginger skin beneath me.

He is entirely the warmth of perpetual bliss, and I wanted nothing more except to say like this for a moment.

Slowly leaning from his chest. I could only dare to avoid his brown eyes.

"You alright?" His voice was still a whisper.

I nodded twice then inched back to sit against the sofa cushions.

Quickly running my hands through my hair, I wiped my face relieved I wasn't drooling.

Angelo sat up, and I peered over his shoulder through the huge back window doors that led to the yard.

It was no longer daylight and the lawn-lamps were on.

He turned his gaze back to me and I noticed his plaid button up was no longer on. His white-shirt was a bit wrinkled from me sleeping on it.

I wiped my eyes, with a small yawn.

"You talk in your sleep." He stated, as I avoided his eyes again, glancing at the fire pit that was lit towards my left.

"Yeah, so I've heard." I mumbled. Damon once mentioned to me that I talked in my sleep years ago. I then looked towards the t.v. screen on my right.

"From your former friends… or flame?" He asked curiously.

"An, no. No. Well, yeah. Damon… Enzo… Damon mostly… He.. has always been a creep when it comes to watching those around him sleep." I smirked remembering back to old times, even though those times weren't the best.

"What are you?" A man's voice on the t.v spoke.

An olive skin tone actor speaks in reply. "I am what you made me. I lived the life that you preached - but never dared practice. I am everything that you were too afraid to be."

I narrowed my eyes confused with the familiar scene. "Is this-"

"The film of Dorian Gray? Yes." Angelo answered. "Before I had fallen asleep reading, you were already snoring after my fourth glass and your fifth."

I looked back at him, "I don't snore."

He chuckled. "You do. Not loudly of course, but calmly."

"When did you light the fire?" I asked, glancing back into the flames behind the couch.

"Just before I took a nap myself. You were asleep for five hours. I woke up just before the beginning of the movie. It wasn't hard to look up on cable. Can you believe an 1800 year old Bennett witch has cable?" He says.

I rolled my eyes. "I'm sure it was out of boredom."

"I was trying to think of what changed her. How could the young, sweet sister of Emmalynn Bennett- heart harden over time?" Angelo said moving to rest his back against the sofa.

I sighed with a shrug. "Something awful had to have happened. Something that changed her completely. I don't know."

"Has something like that happened to you?" He asked me.

The question had me think back to my dream.

"Yeah." I nodded looking at him. "My Grams. It changed me. It made me angry, and depressed for a while." I exhaled. "It made me hate it. Even for a moment, I hated my best friend." I answered.

Angelo nodded. "I can't imagine that pain. The lost. I've never known many, if any, families that were capable of emotion let alone… love… to be honest."

"That's sad." I commented.

"It is." Angelo nodded in agreement.

The only other loss after my Grams that I took to heart was of Luke Martin.

I felt an understanding with Luka, even though I didn't have any deep romantic feelings for him. I liked him as a person, and had an extreme appreciation for his loyalty and teachable lessons on magic. I was in awe and happy, not to mention relieved to have met and talked to another witch for the first time.

"Maybe once you find your biological family, you'll start your own and raise them differently. With love." I advised.

Angelo chuckled. "Maybe… hopefully, one day." He nodded. "I just wish this world was a place to safely bring children into. You know?"

I smiled in agreement. "Yes, I know what you mean. With all the vampires and… other things that go bump in the night. I would be apprehensive about creating a family too. That's why I applauded Jamie. He has such a beautiful heart and he decided to adopt. It's amazing."

Angelo nodded in response.

"I actually admire your relaxed state of mind of not knowing who you are or rather where you come from. I'm not sure how I would feel about never learning who I am or where I came from." I praised him.

"It's a bit unsettling not knowing if I was abandoned or taken, though I try not to fixate." He smiled with a mix of a frown.

"Still.. I wouldn't blame you. You grew up in the Armory, definitely not any easy situation. I ran from them for three years. Enzo helped me. There was no one there for you, Was there?"

"No. Not at all. I was alone."

I nodded feeling sorry about that. No one should ever truly be alone.

"Though… I'm not now." He added. "Being here with you, finding you. It helps. More than you know."

I smile a little feeling that he truly felt that way.

"Well.. I'm flattered." I admitted.

"Can I ask you something?" He asked, and I had a feeling the question that was lingering about in his skull was about my past with Enzo.

I glared as if I could read his mind.

"Depends. Is it about Enzo?" I already have the feeling it will be.

"Yes." He nodded. "If you could go back… and change one thing about your past with him, What would it be?" He asked.

I exhaled looking over towards the fireplace.

That was an easy question. "Nothing." I say with a shrug. "In the beginning Enzo and I were what you called frenemies. Antagonizing each other, similar to how things were with Damon. Except I hated Damon for a very long time. Though with good reason, he was pretty awful back then. Anyway, Enzo first saved me after he was almost sucked into Oblivion from the Other Side collapsing. That was the being or the end when it came to the 1994 prison world."

"The one where you spend four months with Damon?" He asked.

"Yeah." I nodded. "A while afterwards we were more tolerant of each other. Especially, after I helped him deal with Lily Salvatore's rejection. That was heartbreaking for him."

"Is that when you two became close?"

I nodded with a shrug again. "More or less, when he saved me before the Armory.. In hiding he and I grow closer despite still having a love-hate relationship with each other. It was temporary though… Three years passed, and we were in love. I had to eventually bring him back to himself after the Armory's creature mentally-incapacitating him. It was my first real-serious relationship, if i'm being honest." I admitted.

"I can see how that might have been a hardship, but clearly your bond was unbreakable."

"I don't regret any of it. I wish he hadn't died the way he did, though he lived one hundred and forty two years." I paused remembering the most beautiful tragic thing he ever said to me. "He once said, he never believed that life or the higher power would allow him to suffer so much and then die without knowing true love…and that it'd just be completely cruel. .. though when he met me his faith was restored."

"Wow. To have that …with you each and every day. To mean that much to someone… Is what most search forever for." He stated.

I smiled, always feeling that bittersweetness. "Guess you can say I was blessed to have found a love like that. I never thought I would have the chance." I say honestly.

"How? You're the most beautiful soul on this earth. I can see why he felt that way. I keep replaying the night at the Gala. The way you walked into the room like it wasn't your party." He smirked. "Like you don't know how beautiful you are." His eyes were as heavy as a wrecking ball, and I hated the feeling of wanting to fold myself into him once again, even if I did it before unknowingly. Now I prefer to do it completely wide awake. "When I look at you I'm minced with this clarity to not rush when I'm around you. That dilemma ceased to exist here, even when you were lying down in my arms asleep. Time was non-existent." He says.

I bit my lower lip, feeling I could trust him like this. Like before in Paris.

"Before I woke, I had a dream that you would lead me through a wolf-pack's territory. Beyond the forest here, and into a low-land valley. Where we had stood- it was lit by hundreds of fireflies. I felt you trusted me. That I was more than nothing to you." He adds, with so much vulnerability.

"The fact that you're here just proves that not to be true." I confessed. "You're starting to grow on me." I joked, though it was becoming a complete fact.

Angelo glanced over at the fire as the flames decreased a bit.

It was then that I remembered what I saw and felt when I touched his hand at the hotel in France. "When you touched my hand in Paris… I saw 'flames, and intensity of heat' -like you were setting me on fire." I informed him, very much not even understanding what it could mean. He looked in my eyes with a slight head tilt as if he wondered what he could be to me as well. "You being here will either set my heart on fire, or … lead me through the woods to be burnt at the stake." I noted.

It was ludicrous to want to trust him blindly, not knowing the latter of him finding me. "I know I've said this before… but I will never intentionally hurt you Bonnie. My enemy is yours… the evil in this world. The evil that battles what's good on a daily basis. I just want to know you… that I'll fight it all for you. No matter." He says.

I exhaled feeling that he was still holding something back, but that I could trust in something that he was saying. His spiritual aura was radiating in blue.

Blue is associated with calmness, in truth and honesty. An openness and truthfulness when it came to his communicative language, not just his physical body language. It was as if I knew him, even if I've never met him before that day he walked into that cafe.

Like Enzo, Angelo is very loyal and reliable. I'm hoping for the fact that he's here with me… because he's willing to be by my side no matter what, and through thick and thin.

"You know, It's scary how unbelievably humble you are." I admitted.

He smiled. "Me humble? I don't know. I mean you're not the only one with self-confidence of power."

I snorted at that. "I didn't always." I confessed.

"Most aren't born who they are, Bonnie. We grow into it. You have this self-aware-toughness that I admire greatly. I see why your friends depended on you then. Even now the way your mother and Jamie banded together when I reached out. You're the most powerful hero that protects just as much as she hides."

"Hides? I hide? I'm hiding." I exclaimed then looked around. "Oh.. wait.. Yeah.. I'm hiding." I laughed rolling my eyes.

Angelo laughed. "With all respect, Bonnie Bennett… this world needs more knowledge of you. Of who you are, what your blood legacy is… for hope."

I smirked. "I'm no Super-Women. I'm just… me."

Angelo puts his supportive hands around mine, and I looked down with a heated-chill at the touch.

His skin was warm on mine.

I looked into his eyes and there it was again. A fantasy. The image of comfort and bliss of him shirtless beneath me as my arms wrapped around him tightly as if I was flying.

"That alone as well is very much your super strength." He whispered, reaching a gentle hand down to smooth my hair back and I shut my eyes.

"Not many would get this close." I whispered back. Heightened by the sexual tension between us, it was clear he felt it too.

"Any guy would rush to protect you, when you don't even need it. Women like you are rare." He whispered and I reopened my eyes into his, wondering if he could hear the sound of my heart beating out of my chest.

"What makes you think I need protection? From any guy?"

"Us guys are wired for three things. Providing. Protecting, and procreating." He whispered with a grin and it reminded me of Damon. I slid my hands from his standing off the sofa.

"Ugh. Duly noted. Do you want some water?" I asked fast, pushing my legs to rush towards the kitchen. "We were asleep and totally forgot to hydrate ourselves." I say, pulling open the refrigerator door and inside was stocked with fruit, veggies and water.

I almost forgot in the freezer was Lamb meat and chicken wings. "Are you hungry? I think I'll make some lamb, rice and broccoli." I say taking out the broccoli, slamming it on the kitchen counter and reaching to place a bag of brown rice on the table.

"Yeah, thank you. I completely forgot about … food and –"

"I know what you mean. In Egypt that's all I ever did was cook and read when I wasn't working." I say walking back into the living room to hand him the other bottle of water in my arm. "Here. There's also lemonade in there but I'll save that for dinner. We obviously had enough wine." I say awkwardly taking my place back beside him on the couch, scooting over to put some distance between us.

Angelo silently watched me, with the attraction stretching between us.

"So, Where did you leave off with Dorian Gray?" I ask reaching over to pick up the book to keep from watching that sparkle in his eyes of amusement.

"I left off where.. Dorian had met Sibyl Vane." He noted opening his bottle of water and taking a long dehydrated sip.

It made me feel a bit insecure to have him look at me in such an overly comfortable way that made using the word procreate so erotic. Falling asleep is one thing. Imagining him with his shirt off is another. Yet, to fully fantasize of a future and family with him still practically being a stranger is insane. He's insane. I'm insane. This entire situation is crazy.

It made me hungry. Hungry for food, and hungry for the image I didn't want to imagine.

"I forgot, there's popcorn in the cabinet. Do you want some?" I asked not wanting to wait for his answer. "I'll go put some on the stove. Feel free to continue reading the book, I won't spoil it for you." I stood up quickly.

"Bonnie?"

Swiftly, Angelo reaches through the dim lit room and takes my hand, surprising me with a warm and gentle grasp that feels electric.

Standing face to face with me as I paused.

His voice lowers. "I don't want any popcorn." He breathed heavily. "I apologize if I made it awkward with my comment. I just … like our banter and… jokes, mocking each other a bit. It's fun and… refreshing. Such power is within you, still. I knew from the first moment I saw you that you were a force to be reckoned with. It's intimidating. You're intimidating. In all the right ways."

He watches me closely, and while my body still aches for his touch, I do my best to ignore it because his hands are still holding mine in place.

"There's this soft bond just below making us aware of the fire that burns, it's crazy not to -" He cups my face gently, like I was made of porcelain, and kisses me slowly. Softly yet rough. Like he wants to take his time.

Grasping his hand tightly, I moved my lips against his. Pushing as he pulled just enough for our tongues to brush. Gently and breathless.

Like a moth to a flame we were here. Unsure of what was who, and who was what.

It had been so long since I've been with someone, anyone. Was it the same for him? How many women had he been with? Should I even continue? Could I rise to what was once a normal thing as sex? I haven't been held in so long, and yet here he was.

I moaned, gaining the strength to pull my lips from his.

"Angelo." I whispered.

Why were we whispering when we are the only ones here?

I cleared my throat to find the words, yearning to surrender entirely to him.

"I'm sorry. I apologize. That was… I shouldn't have." He says, leaning his soft lips to brush against my hair above my temple.

"It's not you, it's me. I can't. It's been a very long time and … I'm sorry." I whisper gently pushing away, turning to flop back down on the sofa. "I like you, I do.. It's just every time I get close to someone… I lose them… one way or another." I say as he sat down beside me.

"I understand. It's alright." He says way too calmly, and I glare over as he stares down at the coffee table in a deeper thought.

"Are you sure? Because you seem a bit spaced out."

"I'm- I'm done. I mean.. Just thinking…" He stuttered.

"Well… I should get started on dinner…" I say, not wanting this to end completely awkward.

"Would you like some help?" He offered as I continued to stay seated.

"No.'' I say fast. "No, you should take a nap. Try and go get some type of rest."

"To be honest, Bonnie … I doubt I will be about to sleep." He says looking at the t.v. screen that the ending credits of a film I had no idea was on played.

"Why not?" I ask, feeling as if I already knew it was no doubt due to insomnia.

"Because of this… this moment. You don't see… all I'd think of is you." He confessed.

"What?" I ask, a bit surprised he said that out loud.

"Ever since that day in the cafe… and Paris… I only think of you. Being here, I didn't see it coming. You have no idea."

"You- you don't even know me, Angelo." I stated.

"It's not my mind… it's… my heart. This overwhelming heat.. this warmth that my heart prograsses each time I see a smile creep up on that face or that sound of pure laugher each time you find anything remotely amusing. I… I doubt I'll ever sleep again when I'm not in the same room as you. Even so, my mind… I can't turn it off." He shrugs as if it's nothing, looking deep into my eyes.

Woah. Is the thought. That's heavy.

I exhaled. Silence is what I could only manage to do.

Seriously. What the heck? This was what I feared. When I leave, what will happen? Could he bear it? He should be falling for me. He doesn't know people like me… aren't rewarded love. Only tragic love tales and stories.

Angelo cleared his throat. "Sorry, .. I know … that was … a lot." He stood off the sofa. "Ah.. Have a good night." He practically whispers. Then bowed his head… backing away, not turning his back as if I was royalty. "Maybe I should try and lay down." I glared up at him, still sitting on the sofa.

I look to the fire, wondering if our attraction was forming from loneliness or infatuated curiosity.

Whichever, I was attracted to him. His entire energy and aura was utter peace. I needed him. I wanted him. Even if I completely ghost him tomorrow at breakfast time. I cannot allow this moment to be with me mentally or emotionally.

I watched as he disappeared down the hallway.

Perhaps, I physically needed this human connection. It was clear that it was him that I needed to come-undone with.

The last thing I wanted was to reject him, or reject what I wanted deep down inside.

I sighed, finally pouring a glass of strawberry-wine and instantly chugging it back like a shot of bourbon.

I stood from the sofa, clicking off the T.v. as I slowly made my way to one of the guest-rooms in the back of the cabin.

Running a hand through my hair, I wipes my face calmly.

It wasn't long until I knocked on the closed guest-room door.

Without waiting for it to open, I turn the knob and walk right in.

I hope I don't regret this.

Angelo, who stood at the end of the bed, froze from taking off his shirt to look at me.

"Bonnie?"

"Hi." I shut the door and rushed slowly to him like a cat.

"In Paris… I had planned to use my magic to get you to tell me the truth about you." I confessed.

"What do you mean?" He was confused.

"Candles, Cauldrons, Grimoires, Talismans… I didn't care for them.. Still… didn't cross that line. A part of me just wanted to wait it all out, I guess." I stated.

I exhaled nervously, as he paused, afraid to move. We were face to face.

"I've never even thought to even consider something like this so fast .. and I need for this to be in the moment." I stated.

"Meaning you-"

"Meaning ..I need you to be fully honest with me. On everything. Not just your feelings or whatever you think you feel. In fact, we don't know each other enough and a long time ago I was given the advice to always follow my instinct and listen to my instincts when first meeting anyone."

"I understand, Bonnie."

"I'm hoping you do." I nod. "It's been some time since I've considered feeling anything for anyone, let alone… kissing them.. Or more."

Angelo smirked. "You thought about doing more than kissing me?"

"I think we can see what happens when we're not talking." I say, leaning into him -grabbing his shirt- giving him all the permission he needs to take control.

"I'll try my best to not ruin it." Angelo smiles, wrapping his warm arms around my waist- pulling me closer. "I'm all yours." He breathed.

I smiled.

Tilting his face to mine.. He kissed me hungrily.

I moaned into his mouth, gently biting his lip with my teeth, breaking our kiss.

"What a cauldron?" He asked, narrowing his eyes at me.

I laughed, "A large pot used to hold the ingredients for potions." I answered.

Instantly his hands are on the back of my thighs, lifting me up with a fast spin. "To make it clear-"

"Angelo?" I cut him off.

"Yes?" He says fast.

"No more talking." I demanded.

He gave me a teasing grin. "Alright."

Pinning me against the wall, fingers firmly holding mine. I no longer wanted us to pining for each other in anticipation.

His hungry lips came back on mine fast. I gasp, when his tongue trails a path from my chin to the side of my neck.

I was aching for him now. To the bed will be our next move.